Neudahn Castle

The outer castle gate (left) and the striking towers battery

The rock castle Neudahn in the southwestern Palatinate Forest ( federal state of Rhineland -Palatinate ) rises on the northern end of an elongated mountain ridge near the town of Dahn. The core area of the castle is located on a sandstone rock, which are typical of the Dahn country.

Geography

Neudahn is located 2 km north-west of Dahn right of Lauterbrunnen, which is still called Wieslauter on the upper reaches, on a spur of Kauertberges about 90 m above the valley floor. The castle rock reaches 310, the lower castle 290 m. Directly below the castle opens the moss creek which is dammed up there to the earlier operating a mill to a small Woog, from the right into the Wieslauter.

History

The name " Neudahn " is somewhat confusing because the castle is older than Grafendahn in the Dahn Castle group, although younger than Altdahn. Their position enabled them to protect and lock the leading there by the Wieslautertal road, run on their route today side by side, the B 427 and the Wieslauter web.

Probably the castle was built by order of the Bishop of Speyer shortly before 1240; because this was from 1233 to 1236 Conrad IV of Dahn. The exporting Ministeriale was Heinrich von Dahn, which is occupied as Heinrich Mursel of Kropsberg. Apparently, he got the castle from the beginning on hereditary fief. His second name as well as subsequent patterns of inheritance suggest that family relations in the Southern Palatinate - Kropsburg, Burrweiler - passed.

The castle was first mentioned on May 3, 1285 as a castle Than, which is visible in the document from the list of associated goods that it must be either Neudahn.

Even a hundred years after the construction of the castle died Mursels family, and the castle became the property of the related Altdahner line above. Probably burned in four Mr Krieg 1438 and then rebuilt, the system was again very much taken in the Peasants' War in 1525. However, since 1552, King Henry II of France stayed at the castle, they may have been previously thoroughly renovated again. After the last Dahner Ritter, Ludwig II, who died in 1603 in his castle in Burrweiler, Neudahn reverted to the bishopric of Speyer. Henceforth, the castle served as the bishop's bailiff service seat until French troops it at the beginning of the Nine Years War in 1689 destroyed permanently.

Today it presents itself to the visitor substantially in that form which it has assumed in the renovation and expansion phases of the time after 1525 and after the final destruction.

Backup and restoration work took place in the 1970s. The facility is managed by the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage Rhineland -Palatinate, Directorate castles, antiquities, and is next to the Berwartstein 10 km away to the best-preserved castles of Southern Palatinate Forest.

Plant

Links of the former gate system in the Southeast are remnants of a tower of 7 m diameter to find. From this tower head west, then bent away to the north part of a strong defensive wall, which is a complete reversal of the steep northern and north-eastern side of the slope. It led to the Flankierungsturm on the north side of the plant.

From the oldest - late Hohenstaufen - Castle are on the perpendicular processed, almost 20 m high core rock still only a cistern at the western end and the southern walls of the little Palas find with window and door systems. At the northwest end of the castle rock to the south was a late medieval housing, west of it a fountain. A formerly plastered stair tower from the same period, at the northwestern edge of the cliff of the castle leads up to the upper castle. The current entrance on the ground floor, as with many castles, probably not authentic and should have been created for today's visitors, for which the year 1975 speaks of the entrance. He is also outside the inner castle gate. The historical input ports is left of it to see the inside of the door at a higher altitude.

The dominant image of the castle provide both about 24 m high four-storey towers battery on the opposite side. They date from the first half of the 16th century. The western by measures about 7 m, the eastern about 10 m, the wall thickness is about 3 m. Two gun openings (called mouth slits ) of the southern tower battery are designed much more complex in shape of lion faces.

To continue the Castle Hill by east-southeast towards the plant was protected by a wedge-shaped bastion, which is also considered a " distinctive mark " of Neudahn. The shape should prevent projectiles head bounced. It protected the upper castle on the flat there running mountainside. The Bastion and the turrets show that in the late Middle Ages witnessed a considerable modifications to the castle and the castle lords thus contributed to the introduction of firearms bill.